Piro pending!

My hospital tote consists of a toothbrush, a pair of sweats, A People's History of the United States, the bible, Where Angels Fear to Tread, several math papers, and a laptop. Catalina's has one pea green homemade birthing gown, seven books of modern lyric poetry, enough snacks for the Grand Poobah's army, a camera, her entire CD collection, one pair of thick andalusian wool socks, and toothpaste.

It is Wednesday evening, one week to the day beyond Piro's due date, and we have been in Magee's LDR (Labor and Delivery Room) #14 for almost 24 hours. Per standard pokey-baby protocol, we went in for our 'non-stress' test yesterday afternoon, ostensibly to verify that Piro's extended stay in the womb had no overtone of duress, but in fact to expedite his emergence via a mysterious process called 'membrane stripping', officially minimally interventionist, in practice an obscure species of pokeage that produced overwhelming evidence of amniotic sack leakage. And unfortunately, once the waters break, the risk of infection skyrockets and doctors want Baby out asap. The official recommendation was to check in right then and get on with parturition, but the ever pliant midwives arranged a grace period of four hours to collect materials, eat, and take a shower. I taught my class, Catalina took a nap: five hours later, Francisco screeches to a halt in the Magee emergency entrance, and Cata and I pad to triage, fresh faced, jovial, hauling our backpacks like a couple of cubscouts out on their first overnight camping trip.

Oh benighted optimism! Almost immediately, we faced bad karma and hard choices. The processing wench apprises us we are being admitted for 'induction', one of those taboo words that crunchy moms rail against the world over. No sooner are we in triage than the midwife asks us if we want to puncture a few remaining amniotic pockets, in the reasonable hope that doing so might stimulate contractions and delay the dread moment when we administer Pitocin. But neither pokings nor Pitocin were part of the original plan: immediately, I feel trapped in the dread tentacles of Institutional Medicine. The midwife assures us there is nothing she can 'force' us to do, and that if we wish to go home, she won't call the police. But she also makes it clear that any attempt to delay Pitocin beyond the 24 hour mark would be considered dangerously renegade. We hedge. While hedging, nature lets loose the contractions: we enter LDR #14 at midnight with a sense of having narrowly avoided some perilous pitfall.

By morning, however, everything stalls. Back to square one. For better or worse, we decide to proceed with the membrane puncture. At 11:30a.m., blood and liquid pour forth. The midwife is delighted, I am horrified, Catalina is obliviously but soon descends into the most excruciating contractions. She labors like mad until 4p.m. By then, she is begging for mercy. The midwife checks her: 6-7 centimeters. She has progressed a little over 1 cm in 16 hours of labor. The spirit cracks. By 5p.m., she's on an epidural.

And now of course the whole avalanche begins to come tumbling down around us. Her temperature is a little high. If she gets an infection, even Pitocin might not work and she'll be reduced to a C-section, so the midwife suggests a propholactic dose of antibiotics. Contractions continue through the epidural, but by 6p.m. she's still not pushing, and the question becomes how far she has progressed. Either we check her and increase the risk of infection (moot if she takes the antibiotics) or don't check her and risk losing another hour or two to an already devastating physical trial. So perhaps we should start her on a low dose of Pitocin anyway, though it really only makes sense to do with an internal fetal monitor (another crunchy mom bugaboo.)

We seem to be lucky. The midwife confirms that she at 9+ centimeters, and totally effaced. So the contractions are working, suggesting that she probably doesn't have an infection, or at least one serious enough to sabotage the function of the uterus. Thus no Pitocin for the moment, and we'll wait and see on the antibiotics (temperatures sometimes spike with epidurals.) Now its just a long slog, hoping that the cervix disappears, the temperature stays constant, the contractions continue, and baby doesn't get stressed out, and the body begins to push. The midwife will return in at 8:30 to check on things.